Perceptions and Experiences of Online Learning and Synchronous Communication

<p>Abstract</p> <p>High-quality and effective online education is essential to the continuous growth of higher education. As online higher education grows in professional programs, it is especially pertinent to investigate learning designs for their effectiveness in supporting the acquisition of professional skills. Drawing upon the Community of Inquiry (CoI) and the Practice-Based Teaching (PBT) frameworks, this research investigated the effectiveness of one online graduate program designed for practicing teachers to learn new skills (i.e., diagnostic assessment and differentiated instruction) in teaching reading to elementary students. The learning design introduced a new component of virtual presence (i.e., synchronous communication) at strategic points in the online learning process during a three-course clinical sequence in which the teacher participants engaged in field learning experiences. The study used a case study approach to investigate teacher participants’ perceptions of the factors that enabled their online learning during the clinical course sequence. Findings indicated that the teacher participants perceived their online learning environment to be generally high in the CoI factor. They also appreciated that the learning environment incorporated opportunities for authentic, hands-on and practice-centered learning through the use of multiple representations of artifacts, encouraged engagement and clearly identified critical features that can be practiced and applied, with the opportunity to enact these practices learned while in the field. Teacher participants further indicated the critical importance of synchronous communication (virtual presence) component in supporting their learning of the teaching practices in field settings. Implications of these findings are discussed for the expansion of online higher education and applications to other professional learning environments.</p> <p><em>keywords:</em> online, virtual presence, practice based learning, community of inquiry</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Ed.D. Doctor of Education

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation - Public Access

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Higher Education Leadership

Year dc:date.available

2019

Author dc:creator

• Fry, Michelle

Contributors dc:contributor

• Diane Salmon
• Nathaniel Cradit
• Sophie Degener

• online
• virtual presence
• practice based learning
• community of inquiry
• Adult and Continuing Education
• Curriculum and Instruction
• Education
• Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research
• Educational Leadership
• Educational Methods
• Educational Technology
• Higher Education
• Instructional Media Design
• Language and Literacy Education
• Online and Distance Education

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.nl.edu/diss/426

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.nl.edu:diss-1457